MBA Mac OS X install DVDs into USB thumbdrive

[dzhiurgis]

I did this before with .dmg from the internets on a regular MacBook, but now I want to reinstall my MacBook Air, and as far I know the fastest method is installing from USB thumbdrive (I heard wireless installation takes 6-8hrs).

To make a USB thumbdrive with Mac OS X, all you need is a Leopard .dmg, which is used with Disk Utility.app to make bootable stick.
The problem with MacBook Air, there is somewhat 'special' (please correct me if it's not) DVDs in the box (says Leopard for MacBook Air). I think you can easily copy one's DVD content into USB directly, but hows the second disk?
How do you make bootable Leopard USB stick from TWO DVDs?
Thank you

 

[dudup]

I really don't know because I always do the minimum install, and for that you only need the Disc 1.

 

[swiftaw]

(I heard wireless installation takes 6-8hrs).

I did a wireless install last week, and it didn't take anywhere near that amount of time.

 

[aleksandra.]

I did a wireless install last week, and it didn't take anywhere near that amount of time.

Out of curiosity: how much time did it take?

I find the idea of making bootable USB stick interesting. That'd really solve the problem of installing OS (or anything else that comes on CDs or DVDs) on Air without SuperDrive.

 

[swiftaw]

Out of curiosity: how much time did it take?

I find the idea of making bootable USB stick interesting. That'd really solve the problem of installing OS (or anything else that comes on CDs or DVDs) on Air without SuperDrive.

Maybe 2 hours

 

[dudup]

Doing the minimum install via a USB stick is less than 10 minutes, from the startup sound until you see Leopard's welcome video.

Add to that maybe 20 minutes to copy the OS X install disc to the USB stick, and you get the picture.

 

[fizzwinkus]

a bare minimum install on a macbook air will take about 35 minutes. (yes, i've done this too many times)

not sure how long a complete install takes, but two hours seems very reasonable.

 

[dzhiurgis]

I found out that you can use any Retail disk over version 10.5.4 (or even 10.5.2), since they have the drivers slipstreamed.

 

[n0de]

The second disc only contains XCode (developer's tools) and some additional foreign language resources. You will be just fine without it. Good to know this works. It would be a great idea to carry a USB stick copy in my bag in case I need to do disk maintenance on the road.

 

[dudup]

The second disc only contains XCode (developer's tools) and some additional foreign language resources. You will be just fine without it. Good to know this works. It would be a great idea to carry a USB stick copy in my bag in case I need to do disk maintenance on the road.

Yeah, now the 4 and 8gb sticks are cheap, I find myself with some bootable sticks with Leopard, iDefrag (yeah, yeah, I believe in it), etc.

 

[dzhiurgis]

Wow, this going to take a while

 

[bobjob186]

let us know how it works.